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I am trying to recreate the line swirl in our compliment slip in Adobe Illustrator? I have been struggling for hours with transforming straight lines, creating waves, rotating, etc. but still can't get there?

enter image description here

If anyone can help it would be greatly appreciated!

Anne

3 Answers 3

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The tool you're looking for is called the Blend Tool.

Here's how you use it:

  • Create two lines using the Pen Tool:

Two lines that are the starting point for the blend.

  • Activate the Blend Tool W is the keyboard shortcut, or you can click it on the Tools palette:

Activate the Blend Tool!

  • Click on the two lines you want to blend.

Creating a connection between the two lines

  • While the blend on your artboard is active, double-click the Blend tool icon to change the properties, or go into Object > Blend > Blend Options....

Changing the blend's properties

That should do it! You can play with the stroke colors and positioning, but blending the lines together is the key to doing what you want.

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  • Fantastic, thank you soooo much!!! The hours I've spent trying to do this! :-)
    – Anne Carew
    Jan 18, 2013 at 17:45
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If you want a custom point of rotation, you're best off with the rotate tool (option+click to set your point of rotation). Then you Transford again to repeat it.

If you can just use one of the 9 standard points, I prefer to do this with a Transform effect.

Draw your shape

Choose Effect > Distory & Transform > Transform ...

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Arch tool with a stroke of maybe 1 or 2. Then Object -> Expand -> Expand Stroke

Now drop a gradient in

Now you'll want to do rotate by a small increment using the rotate command)

Now hit CTRL+D a bunch of times until you're happy with it.

Mirror across both axis. Or you could have made a more complex arc/pen to begin with.

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  • Hi, Thanks for your reply but I think maybe my picture isn't detailed enough. It's made up of 45 individual lines that converge and twist/flip/bend in the middle. I think the darker colour is caused by the density of the lines.
    – Anne Carew
    Jan 18, 2013 at 17:19
  • So skip step 1 and 2.
    – Ryan
    Jan 18, 2013 at 18:29

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